It’s been a quiet a week.

Last Friday, my wife’s paternal Grandmother, Anna, died at her home, just a block away from my own, at 90 years of age. Needless to say, it’s been a struggle to wrap any thoughts around planning a date with myself. Instead, please indulge me while I give a quick tribute to this amazing lady – one of my biggest cheerleaders in writing and in life.

Grandma Anna was one of those characters that “broke the mold.” However, honestly, I’m not sure there ever was a mold for her. She had a huge heart – generous beyond compare – and a bigger funny bone – never missing the opportunity for a solid jab. An interesting, but endearing, mix. I’d love to share a sampling of my favorite interactions with her:

• She truly enjoyed all the entitlements that came with being 90 – namely, never having to filter any comment. Her favorite topic of late was asking me if I’d figured out how to make a baby yet. She *loved* watching me squirm. She’d chuckle after a long, uncomfortable moment of me drenched with sweat and then ask some other family member if they were in love and getting married to the person they started dating a few months prior.

• At 88, she got a heart-valve replacement. As they wheeled her into to surgery, she grabbed my wife’s arm and told her, “Me and Lin were married for 40 amazing years before he died. You want to know the secret? [Lisa quickly nods]. Make love EVERY day. Hear me, EVERY DAY. For 40 years, we never missed and we were so happy.” (Sure, Grandma’s comment was a bit uncomfortable, but just a small price to pay for a nugget of brilliance. I’ll never be able to thank Grandma enough for that one. Seriously, a bottomless debt.)

• Every time I saw her (and, keep in mind, we lived a block away), she’d ask me when my book was becoming a movie. Over and over, I’d explain there were a few steps between here and my Hollywood millions. She’d smile, nod, and say she couldn’t wait. Then she’d turn around and tell someone that I was going to be a famous writer and make as much money as that Harry Potter fellow.

• Grandma Anna could remember the year/model of each car she’d ever owned and the birthdays of every 2^nd cousin in Utah, but never the title of a movie she’d just watched…though she always came close enough to get the point across. AS GOOD AS IT GETS became NEVER BEEN BETTER. Then IT’S COMPLICATED transformed into VERY DIFFICULT. Or MEET THE FOCKERS was…well, you know…that one was too easy for even her. Though she enjoyed asking us if we’d seen it in the most public of places.

• When she heard someone talking about Demi Moore being a ‘cougar’, she started introducing herself as a one and me as her boyfriend. On her last day, she said to me, ‘You’re losing your girlfriend…pretty soon you’ll be stuck with the wife.”

• I’m from New Mexico and she was from Utah (which flippin’ touch each other). But she always referred to my home state as Mexico (if you’ve EVER met a New Mexican, this is equivalent to farting in our face). One time, she was wearing an obviously southwestern T-shirt (turquoise, silver, and beaded – the whole nine yards). I asked her if it was New Mexican. Her response: “Nah, this thing is old.”

• Every grandkid’s birthday, she’d hand you a $100 bill as a present. Even me, long before I married into the clan. I was blood to her from the first moment we met.

• Last Christmas, the family chipped in to buy Grandma a spanking new 47” Sony flat panel LCD TV. Split 20 ways, it wasn’t too expensive and she actually had plenty of money to buy it herself, but she cried and carried on like we’d given her King Tut’s treasure. The night before she died, we watched WHEEL OF FORTUNE with her on it. She was still getting the answers right before the contestants.

Hopefully, I’ve given a blurry snapshot of Grandma Anna’s awesomeness. I’ll miss her a ton. But she would’ve hated me getting any more mushy than that. So, in closing, here’s her final jab…in fact, they were her final words.

“Hey, Lisa…when’s the baby coming?”

Feisty broad until the end, right?

I have a confession to make: Laini Taylor frightens me.

She started scaring me when I read Lips Touch: Three Times, a collection of stories that was a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award. That book spun me. When I read it, I was completely blown away by Taylor’s talent. She's a masterful writer and a truly creative storyteller. She's scary good, I tell you.

With DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE, Taylor has outdone herself. This is an exquisite, dark and gorgeously written book with an unforgettable heroine, world, and story.

Here’s the description from Goodreads:

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages—not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.

When one of the strangers—beautiful, haunted Akiva—fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

Sounds amazing, right? And it IS. I hesitate to tell you too much by way of plot, save to say that this takes a concept that has been in quite a bit of YA lately, and gives it a firm--and stunning--tug into fresh ground.

It takes a lot for a book to truly stand out for me. When I’m lucky, I find one that leaves me in a daze long after I’ve read the last page. This is such a book. It’s the rarest of the rare—one to savor and love. To keep close and reread. I can't wait to buy this in hard copy.

Very highly recommended. Twelve out of ten stars.

Check out what the rest of the Bookanistas are reading:

Elana Johnson succumbs to The Eleventh Plague

LiLa Roecker travels to The Day Before

Shannon Whitney Messenger swoons over Flyaway by Lucy Christopher – with giveaway

Scott Tracey is overwhelmed by A Vast Field of Ordinary

Jessi Kirby wonders at What Happened to Goodbye

Shana Silver is mesmerized by Possess

Corrine Jackson’s Blogiversary celebration continues with more YA Authors on Lessons Learned

Stasia Ward Kehoe ponders the issue of plot spoilers in book reviews – with giveaway

I confess that until my fellow muses suggested the Artist's Date as a topic, I had never heard of it.  Then I hopped over to the Artist's Way website to figure it out.  I'm still trying to figure it out.

Two hours a week to myself where I wasn't writing?  And I couldn't spend it with my real life love interest, kids or friends?  I don't know about the rest of you, but my free time is precious.  I have a sixty plus hour a week career, a family, a needy Saint Bernard and deadlines.  If I can spare a minute, it's only because I need to go to the grocery store, drop my son off at his guitar lesson or surf the internet, or play solitaire or see how many people have added my books to their Goodreads TBR list... Oh. 

And then I read a little closer.  The Artist's Date need not be a big production or taken all at once.  It's more about reminding yourself to slow down and LOOK.  Look at the world around you.  Take in images and store them in your conscious and subconscious mind, so that you'll know just how that teacher with the tight curls and close-cropped hair twirls a piece of chalk through her fingers, faster and faster until the chalk snaps in two.  And when that angsty kid with the snarky dialogue appears on page 37, you'll know exactly how the skin along his left cheek twitches when he feels threatened and how the long laces on his hi-tops wrap around his ankles twice before coming together in a tangle of knots that in no way resemble a bow.

The Artists' Date is about observing people, places, scents, sounds and textures so that they may someday make their way to the page.  It's about letting your conscious mind relax so your subconscious can solve the problems in you story.

So my Artist's Date could be as simple as taking my lunch outside and enjoying the summer weather instead of eating it at my desk, or as elaborate as taking myself to an Alligator Farm on a trip to Florida (yes, I did this once on a business trip after my kids refused to go when we were there on vacation) or afternoon tea at the Ritz Carlton while visiting New York.  I could go to a park or bookstore or just set off for a walk in a different direction.  I could use my time on the plane to watch and listen to the other passengers instead of keeping my nose buried in a book.  I could bake a batch of cookies from scratch.

Another confession:  I haven't. I have stood up my inner artist.

I may have to buy myself some chocolate.  Wait.  Does a trip to the grocery store count?  I think it does.  Whew.  It's all good.  We're back on.

We interrupt our regular programming for this important bulletin.

This week are supposed to be talking about “artist dates.”  My perfect date is popcorn and a movie, neither of which I get very often.  I’m boring that way.  So instead, I’ve decided to make an announcement.

If you have been paying close attention (and it's okay if you haven't), you will have noticed that my profile has changed here, on twitter, on Facebook, and over the Apocalypsies blog. What has changed, you may ask?

My title. Again.

Some of our old loyal followers may remember a post I did back in March of this year, about the struggle I went through to find a title. I'll repost it here, so our new loyal followers can get the idea.

I write terrible titles.  The worst.  Give me 80,000 words to write and color me happy, but limit me to one to five?  And I’m stuck.

My book is going to be published next year.  When I first started writing it, I called it UNTITLED CATHERINE HOWARD.  Original, yes?  Just like writing the first chapter, I can’t write a title until I know what the book will be like.  That’s what makes it so hard for me to start writing a book.  Without a title and a first chapter, what do you have?  Not much.

The first conference I took the book to, I threw on a title at the last minute before hitting print.  The title I chose?  CAT’S CRADLE.  I thought, Catherine Howard (Cat) gets herself into a mess of trouble – like she’s tied herself up in her own web.  Like a cat’s cradle.  I completely forgot that Kurt Vonnegut already wrote that title.  And as the critique-group mediator pointed out, the book is narrated by someone else. 

So I changed it to CAT’S SHADOW.  My protagonist not only falls into the shadow of Catherine Howard, she also follows Cat like a shadow.  Clever, right?  No, boring. 

Somehow, even with such a dire title, I managed to score a fabulous agent in Catherine Drayton.  And she came up with a title that made me tingle and wish I were that clever:  GILT.  Because gilding covers something in a veneer of gold to make it look rich and beautiful – a bit like Cat.  And because guilt plays a major role in the development of several characters.

We sold the book with that title.  Announced it with that title.  And then it was pointed out that perhaps gilt and guilt were too easily confused. 

So I’ve been riding on the e-mail-go-round with my agent and editor for the past four months – circling faster and faster as we got more frustrated (and I got more desperate).  I don’t mind admitting that most of my ideas were shot down quickly:  too boring, too literary, too long, too archaic, doesn’t say anything about the book.  My family started suggesting titles like:  WE COULDN’T THINK OF A TITLE FOR THIS BOOK SO WE’RE NOT GOING TO CALL IT ANYTHING. 

I spent long car trips shooting ideas at my captive audience – my family.  I spent an hour on the phone with my husband while he drove back from a meeting.  I went through the manuscript.  Twice.  I read Tudor poetry and Catherine Howard’s letters and Shakespeare (though he didn’t write until 50 years after the action of the novel).   And it wasn’t just me.  My agent came up with ideas at the beach.  My editor, Kendra Levin, had long conversations with colleagues at Viking.  The Muses fired off titles in e-mails.  Other writer friends sent lists of key words.

We kept circling the idea that the Tudor court was a great, gaudy, glittering show – all bright colors and extravagant jewels and ostentation.  And then when my characters get there, they are consumed by it all.  Trapped.  We wanted a title that sparkled, but carried with it a hint of danger.

So last week, after a long discussion with Regina Hayes, Kendra came back to us with a title we finally agreed on.  The relief in our e-mails was palpable. 

GIRL IN A DIAMOND COLLAR.

A few weeks ago I got a call from my agent. She didn’t ask if I was sitting down, but her voice carried that tone. “Katy,” she said, “they want to change the title.”

I may have shrieked, “What?!” But she tactfully ignored me. And before palpitations set in, she added:

“To GILT.”

I was caught somewhere between laughing and crying, though the crying was more from relief than from any other emotion.  Because I love this title.  I always have.  It is, perhaps, the reason finding another title was so difficult.  So I’m happy.  And now I can’t wait to see the cover.

"The most potent muse of all is our own inner child." Stephen Nachmanovich

In Julia Cameron's book, THE ARTIST'S WAY, she describes the idea of nurturing creativity through an "artist's date."

According to Cameron, an "artist's date" is a block of time, maybe one or two hours a week, especially set aside to nurture your creative consciousness. Some ideas include a long country walk, a solitary expedition to the beach for a sunrise or sunset, a sortie out to a strange church to hear gospel music, or a visit to an ethnic neighborhood to taste foreign sights and sounds. Or your artist child might like bowling.

I didn't think my inner artist wanted to go bowling, but it did make me wonder. How might I plan time to nurture my creativity? So this week the Muses turn our attention to describing what that time might look like for each of us and, in the process, challenge you to do the same.

When I first started thinking about this, my mind immediately went to blocking out time to meet various goals. I've been struggling lately with balance between my day job and my writing life, so it seemed natural to think of ways to support my writing time. Spending a good chunk of time devoted to working on my editorial letter for SKINNY would be perfect. I thought about going to the mountains to write, or a local coffee shop, or even my backyard. That's nurturing, right? But this exercise wasn't supposed to be about supporting my writing life, it was about supporting ME. I went back and reread.

"In filling the well, think magic. Think delight. Think fun. Do not think duty."

So I thought some more. Eventually I came up with something that seemed totally counter intuitive to everything productive that needed to be done, and I made a plan.

I decided to float.

Around the corner from where I live is a lake (see the picture above) and that is where my "date" will take place. The first step of my plan involves blowing up a cheap air mattress. The smell of the plastic, the slightly light headed dizziness of blowing really hard, and the rhythmic sound of the air inflating the float, instantly connects me to some of the best memories of my childhood. Then, I will throw it out into the water, climb aboard and just float. I won't answer emails, or make phone calls, or have meetings... or even write.

I will just float.

It's a completely radical, and childish, idea.

Floating doesn't make much sense in my adult world. Something so unstable as water should not be able to offer such strong support. Something so mindless as drifting shouldn't be able to help me center my thoughts.

And that's exactly why I deemed it the perfect play date.